Street-railway



2 Sheets-Sheet L (No Model.)

L. M. HOSBA. -STRBET RAILWAY.

Patented Apr. 16, 1889.

@Hentai/1 N. PUERS. Pmwumugnpmr, whingmn. ne

(No Model.) 2 Sheets--Sheet 2.

L. M. HOSEA.

9. oo vOO .Il 6| 11 L D. A .d nu .Tu D e .+o Ya AP W L TL A R T E E R TS 2. ,.O OO .Il 0 4 O. N

25M/enter.

N. PETERS PhnLD-uuwgnphef, wauwau. D. c

UNITED STATES PATENT Orrrcno LEYVIS M. HOSEA, OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

STREET- RAILWAY.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 401,352, dated April16, 1889.

Application filed February 17, 1888. Serial No. 264,327 (No model.)

To aZZ whom t may concern:

Be it known that I, LEWIS M. I'IOSEA, a citizen of the United States,residing at Cincinnati, Ohio, have invented new and useful Improvementsin Street-Railways, of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates to that class of street or other railways in whichthe motive power is carried upon or independently applied to the cars ormotors as distinguished, for example, from ordinary traction cablerailways, in which cars possess noindependent motive power.

In the class of railways to which my invention is applied (for example,steam, air, horse, or electric street-railways) several circumstancescombine to increase the expense both. of construction and operation.Cars must be equipped to carry or exert a maximum propellingpower at alltimes and under all circumstances of grade, condition of track, amountof load, dce. W'here, in addition to the ordinaryvariations of load, dueto conditions of travel, the propelling-power is further taxed to carrythe car and load over gradients, it is obvious that to provide themechanism and carry the power at the limit necessitated by theseconditions is unduly expensive in construction and maintenance of bothmotor and roadway, because upon levels and declivities the powerrequired would ordinarily be much less, and the same remarks apply tovariations of load. It will be equally obvious, therefore, that if, byproviding cars with only such power as would be required to meet averageconditions, (for example, to carry a car upon a level with an averageload,) such a road could he successfully operated, a considerablereduction in expense both of construction and. maintenanceavould ensue.

It is the obje-ct of my invention to reach this result, and in doing soa further advantage is secured peculiar to itself in respect to thisclass of railways-to wit, the di lhculties of traction in ascendinginclines is overcome in cars applying the propelling-power to thewheels.

To the ends thus indicated, my invention consists, primarily, in thecombination, with a railway of the class speciiied, and cars op eratedthereon by independent means of propulsion, of an endless normally-idlecable (which may be a chain or rope of any suitable kind orconstruction) carried in a slotted conduit beneath the roadway, as inordinary traction cable railways, around idler-pulleys arranged interminal bights of the cable, and connecting devices whereby carspassing upon the railway may temporarily couple to said cable and giveany temporary excess of propelling-power they may possess to or receiveany residuuin of power they may require from the same. For instance, inthe ordinary operation of street-railroads, where the load of passengersvaries in both directions, there will be occasions where the excessiveweight et a down car upon a grade (irrespective of otherpropelling-power) may be sufficient to draw another car up withoutexpenditure of local motive power on either, thereby economizing suchpower, and in cases of such use of the system the dead-weight ofcar-structures will be counterbalanced, leaving only the excess ofpassenger weight to be provided for or utilized, as the case may be.

My invention consists, secondly, in combining with such idlencable andcars an auxiliary means of propulsion applied directly to the cable, tobe brought into play, as occasion may require, to supply any balance ofpower that maybe required-ats, for example, to draw or assist an up carover a grade where no down car is at hand.

It consists, iinally, in certain details of construction and arrangementhereinafter pointed out. y

The nature and'details of my invention will be more fully understoodfrom the following description of a system of mechanism embodying thesame, as applied to a street-rail- Way gradient, and illustratedin theaccompanying drawings, in which- Figure l is a diagram side elevation ofa gradient of a street-railway to which my improvement is applied,showing the up and down cars engaged with the cable. Fig. 2 is a diagramplan view of the same, in which I have indicated, as an addition', acounter-shaft for transmitting power derived from any source to theupper cable-pulley. Fig. 3 represents examples of several forms of cablewhich may be selectively used. Fig. et is a partial elevation of a car,showing a hook device for engaging the cable. Fig. 5 is an end elevationIOO of a car, showing the same; and Fig. 6 is a cross-section of theroadway, showing more clearly the tunnel construction.

Referring now more particularly to the drawings, A B designate the upand down trackways, respectively, of a gradient upon a street-railway,and C C2 up and down cars moving thereon, respectively; and c, anendless cable (in the sense indicated) carried around horizontal pulleysD D2 at the head and foot, respectively, of the gradient. The cable c iscarried between the pulleys D D? in parallel lines in oppositedirect-ions and runs in a suitable conduit, T, (which for the purposesof my invention is preferably a castiron tube,) whose upper side isslotted longitudinally, laid and secured between the trackrails r uponthe cross-ties d by suitable bracket-supports, e, and made in sectionsof suitable length separated by boxes F, in which are carriedidler-pulleys p, for supporting the cable, as in ordinary cablerailways.

The details of construction of the tunnelor conduit and thecarrying-pulleys are not material to my present invention, as thestructure of ordinary cable railways may be used in so far aspracticable. The structure of the cable, however, must be such as toenable the car to readily connect and disconnect at will. I have shownin Fig. 4L a simple hook-bar, g, carried in a bifurcated frame, g',attached directly to the car-axles, and an ordinary chain carried in theconduit T, as the cable. The hook engages directly in a horizontal linkof the chain and around the rear of the adjacent vertical link andreadily disengages by lifting up the hook. The latter is held up uponthe car, as indicated by the dotted lines of Fig. et, and when droppeddown through the open slot of the conduit engages the nearest open link.vided with a coiled spring, s, acting against a cross-bar of the frame gto relieve the jerk at starting.

The cars C C2 are provided with motors of any description,storagebattery motors m being indicated in the drawings, belting to theaxles.

\/---The sheaves or pulleys D D2 are carried in suitable hangers orframes, 71. 72,'and one or both should be adjustable to take up theslack of the cable, as required.

Selective forms of cable are exhibited in Fig. 3 as follows: c', adouble cable having links between at regular intervals; c2, a wire ropewith collars fixed thereto at regular intervals; c3, an ordinary steelor iron chain, and c4 a wire rope having eyelets woven therein atregular intervals. To use cable c2, the hook is bifurcated at its end todrop over the cable behind one of the collars. I prefer, however, to usean ordinary chain, as indicated in Fig. 4, for short sections of road.

The mode of use is as follows: Suppose the down car, C2, to be at thetop of the grade empty, and the up car, C', at the bottom of the gradeloaded. Both cars couple to the The shank of the hook g is procablec-the down car at the rear and the up car at the front-and at a propersignal both cars apply their motive power. It will be seen that the carsbalance each other, leaving only the load of the up car to be lifted andthe slight cable friction to be overcome. But suppose the down carto beempty and the up car to be loaded; to lift said load the motive power ofboth cars acting upon the track is combined through the medium of thecable c. It will be seen that even in this extreme case the excess ofpower applicable to the lifting of the load would ,be ample in all casesin practice, even where the motive power of cars is only sufficient todrive them on levels. On arriving at the top and bottom of the grade,

respectively, both cars disconnect (which may be done without stopping)and proceed on their way without loss of time. As the excess of loadwould often be the other waythat is, in favor of the down car at suchtimesthe propelling-power of the cars would be disused and gravity alonerelied upon. The brakes of either car would also thus act upon the otherthrough the medium of the cable, so that setting the brakes on one carwould ordinarily stop both, or indicate by retardation through the cablethe signal for brakes.

To provide for emergen cies-such as the absence of a down car to assistthe up carpower may be applied to either pulley D D2 from any sourceforexample, a steam -en gin e doing other work on the line of road, whosepower is brought to the station by shafting or belting and applied atwill. To this endI have shown a. counter-shaft, i, Fig. 2, driven by abelt, 7c, from any source of power, and connected directly to the pulleyD by a bevelgear, o, a suitableline of cog-teeth being cast upon thepulley D.) A special motor may, however, be provided for this purpose.The power may be thus applied upon signal or in any suitable mode. Insuch case, since the up car has its own motive power, that required atthe gear 0 will be only such remainder as is necessary to overcome theresistance of the grade.

gradients of a railway may be thus provided, and also thatstreet-railways may thus be operated upon much steeper grades than wouldotherwise be practicable, and with much less expense than by presentsystems, provided cars are run with such regularity as to make theopposite ends of the gradients at about the same time, so as to aid eachother in the manner indicated.

Vhile it is preferred to carry the cable between the rails of eachtrack, a double tunnel or two tunnels may be used, located between thetwo tracks, with the returned cable passing in opposite directions.

The system may be applied where the up and down tracks are laterallyremoved from each other, as upon separate streets, by eX- tending thecable in the lines of' a parallelogram with horizontal pulleys at thecorners IOO IIO

and usinga proper system of signals. It may also be used with advantagefor bridge or hill crossings where the incline ascends from bothdirections to a central summit, the 'cable being extended beyond ineither direction to accommodate a proper arrangement of 'meeting-pointsaccording` to respective conditions of load.

A further illustration of the principles of the invention is where asingle track only ascends an incline and power is applied to the upper4or lower pulley to assist the car up the grade by means of the cable.

A still further illustration of the principles of the invention is wherethe trackway descends to cross a valley or depression. In such case abalancing car, normally keptat the bottom of the grade, is drawn up bythe descending car, and (one of the cars changing the grip to theoppositely-moving portion of the cable) by its descent assists the carup the opposite slope.

A further illustration of the system within the spirit of my inventionis a continuous idler-cable carried over the entire length of astreet-railway where a. number of cars are constantly in operation, allcars coupling and giving motion thereto or receiving motion therefromwhile in operation. In such case, inasmuch as the bulk of travel at agiven time sets in one direction, with empty cars coming in the other,the empty cars would through the medium of the cable give their excessof motive power to the loaded cars. This would, however, only bepracticable where so large a number of cars are in use as to secure atall times a sufiicientpropellingpower, regardless of stoppages, rbc.

These illustrations are given merely to indicate the nature and scope ofthe invention,

and mightb'e extended, for example, to in-.

clude a power-driven cable used in connection with independently-drivencars, which give motion to or receive motion from the cable, theterminal cable-driving power being employed only to assist or make goodany temporary diminution. of the power derived from the cars.

I. claim and desire to secure by Letters Patent of the United States*-l. In a tram or railway system, inv combination with cars or motorsprovided with independent means of propulsion, an endless normally-idlecable carried in a surface-slotted conduit or conduits in or parallelwith the trackway, fixed carrying-pulleys arranged in the terminalbights of the cable, and means for temporarily connecting the cars ormotors to said cable through the surface slot of the conduit,substantially as set forth.

2. In a tram or railway system, in combina' tion with cars or motorsprovided with independent means of propulsion, an endless normally-idlecable carried over a gradient or other section of said railway in asurfaceslotted conduit or conduits in or parallel with the trackways,fixed pulleys arranged at the terminus of such railway-section in thebights of the cable, and means for connecting cars or motors to suchcable through the surface slot of the conduit while passing over saidsection of the railway, substantially as set forth.

3. In a tram or rail way, in combination with cars or motors providedwith independent means of propulsion, an endless normally-idle cablearranged upon a section of the railway and carried around fixedcarrying-pulleys at the termini of such section, a surface-slottedconduit inclosing the cable between said pulleys, power-connections forthe temporary application of power to one or both of said terminalcarrying-pulleys to drive the cable, and means carried by the cars ormotors to connect with said cable temporarily While passy in over said`section, substantially as set forth.

l. In a double-track tram or railway system operating cars provided withindependent means of propulsion in opposite directions over said tracks,the combination, with such cars so provided, of an idler-cable carriedin opposite directions in surface-slotted conduitsV in or parallel withthe trackways, respectively, and means for connecting said cars withsaid cable through the slot, whereby the cars moving in one directionmay impart motion through the medium of said cable to cars moving in theopposite direction, substantially as set forth.

5. In a tram or rail Way system, the combination, with the trackway, ofa cable-conduit having a surface slot, a cable having engaging-stopsthereon carried in said conduit, cars or motors provided withindependent means of propulsion traveling said railway, and adjustableengaging devices carried by said cars for connecting to or disconnectingfrom said cable at will to give power thereto or receive powertherefrom, substantially as set forth.

G. In a street-railway, in combination with a section of double trackwayupon which cars move in opposite directions, a surface-slottedcable-conduit arranged at or parallel with the trackway, a horizontalcarrying-pulley at each terminus of suoli trackway-section, and anendless normally-idle cable passed around said pulleys and through saidconduits in opposite directions, and means carried upon the cars fortemporarily attaching to said cable at either track upon reaching saidsection of trackway and while passing the same, and for disconnectingfrom the same upon reaching the terminus of said section, substantiallyas set forth.

In testimony whereof` I have hereunto set my hand in the presence of twosubscribing witnesses.

LEWIS M. I-lOSEA.

Witnessesz C. D. Kann, E. L. Kuna.

IOO

IIO

